Accurate Accounting

July 10, 2020

You say, “I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!” And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Revelation 3:17 NLT

We have already learned that God sees with different eyes than we do naturally, and He often evaluates totally differently than we do. Solomon noted it and told us that life experiences verify God’s opinion that money never satisfies. In the last book of the Bible, we hear witness of another kind. John, the disciple of Jesus, was now an old man. He was banished to the Isle of Patmos for punishment for his refusal to stop teaching and preaching Jesus. There, God spoke to him messages to churches and people and visions of the end times.

In the first chapters he spoke to specific communities of people, churches of that time. The church of Laodicea was a wealthy church who had all the resources they felt they needed. They were not a generous church. But what they lacked in generosity, they made up for in confidence. They looked at their bank accounts, their reputations, their resources, their supporters, and felt great about the bottom line. Each one said, “I’m rich. I have everything I need. I couldn’t be in a better position.”

Jesus read the bottom line entirely differently. He said, “You aren’t looking at the right ledger. In truth, you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. You are the exact opposite of what you think you are. You lack the things that are most important. Turn from your indifference. I correct and discipline those I love. Work with me. Purity is important. You have lived your life with such carelessness that you should be embarrassed. You are stripped of what is most important now and in eternity because you have focused on the wrong things. Being rich isn’t measured the way you measure it.”

Jesus went back to the same message we are hearing over and over. We show our true gods and what we believe makes us rich by what we pursue most. If pursuing Jesus, His kingdom, and His righteousness first and foremost, nothing else can make us rich or satisfy us.

• What does your ledger say?
• How do you feel about your standing before God?
• Jesus said we grow our wealth or lose it by purity and discipline and allowing Him to correct us. Don’t be afraid of correction. He says He corrects those He loves.
• Pray: Ask Jesus to show you how you look from His perspective. Then make a plan for growth toward true riches.